Here is a step by step guide on how I made a Möbius strip from paper. A short video shows how to fold a paper strip up into Möbius shape. It takes only a few minutes to complete the tutorial.
Make it
- Take a blank sheet of paper (US letter / European A4), a pair of scissors and glue.
- Cut a 1” / 3cm wide strip off of the sheet.
- Mark the up side with a horizontal red line, as shown in the picture.
- Grab each end with one hand. Twist the right end along the red line, so that the blank side comes on top.
- Turn both ends of the strip by 180 degrees in opposite directions, the left end clockwise, the right end counterclockwise, until they meet and overlap.
- Glue both ends together at the overlap.
- Finished!
Have fun with it
FolIowing these steps, I made a clockwise and a counterclockwise strip, and cut them in half along the red line. Instead of splitting, the strips just became twice as long and got doubly twisted, as you can see in the gallery.
Then I cut another Möbius strip. This time the starting point was one-third away from the edge. The cut didn’t come full circle, but was two-thirds away from the edge after one round. I went on cutting. After the second round I finally returned to the starting point. The strip separated in two intertwined pieces, a small Möbius strip and a long doubly twisted strip.
Stephan Höhne 